a blog on research and developments in eye tracking and gaze interaction

Monday, March 14, 2011

Mirametrix acquired by TandemLaunch Technologies

MONTREAL (Quebec), February 18, 2011 – TandemLaunch Technologies today announced that it has completed the acquisition of all assets and staff of Vancouver-based Mirametrix Research Inc., a privately held provider of gaze tracking technology. Mirametrix is a technology company offering affordable gaze tracking systems for application in vision research and content analytics. The technology acquired through Mirametrix complements TandemLaunch’s consumer gaze tracking portfolio. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“Mirametrix is an innovative small company that has successfully introduced gaze tracking solutions for cost-competitive applications. TandemLaunch offers the resources to scale the Mirametrix business and ultimately bring gaze tracking into the consumer market” said Helge Seetzen, CEO of TandemLaunch.

The website has been updated revealing the new executive team, product offering appears to remain the same for the time being. Helge Seetzen (blog) is an entrepreneur who sold his previous company, BrightSide, to Dolby Technologies for ~$30 million which he invested into the TandemLaunch incubator which focuses on early stages in technology development with the aim bring in industry partners to acquire the technology for further commercialization (interview).

Congrats to Craig Hennessey, founder of Mirametrix, who is now well on his way to commercialize his PhD research (1, 2) on remote eye tracking based on a single camera setup, bright pupil and corneal reflections. It will be interesting to see how additional resources backing the operation will affects the industry and what role an affordable but perhaps less accurate system has to play. The latter can be improved upon but what about the market, will an affordable system expand or create new segments? From the top of my head, Yes. Time will tell..